HRD Ministry Proposes Free Wi-Fi For 38 Central Universities

Students of around 38 central universities will finally be able to access free Wi-Fi in university campuses in places including libraries, hostel, canteens and study areas.

The high-speed network will have a bandwidth of 2Gbps allowing students to download data from sites, barring banned ones, through hotspots. The universities will get high-speed connections of 2Gbps; in case there are many colleges within a university, they would get at least 2mbps of bandwidth.

Officials said though the project was announced in the Union budget, it has now been put on fast-track. Most universities will be covered by March 2016 and bigger campuses may take a few more months. The project is in sync with the government's ‘Digital India' project.

"Pipelines were laid under the National Knowledge network and we are going to use the same for providing Wi-Fi in universities. The idea is to cover all those specific points that are frequented by students, including restaurants within the campus and hostels," said a senior HRD official.

In 2014, HRD minister Smriti Irani in a Lok Sabha reply said her government was working on a programme under which Wi-Fi access would be provided. But officials said to ensure students do not use it at odd hours, especially in hostels, the control system and server will be provided to the vice-chancellor so they can decide upon its implementation and monitoring.